Coming Soon! Walk around phone booths!

On Thursday I went to Freebird’s for my once-a-week burrito fix. The joint is laid out

like a traditional cafeteria with multiple people taking people’s orders. You walk up, tell the person what size and kind of tortilla and they walk you down the line asking you what you would like on your burrito. It’s a pretty efficient way of running things, as they’re able to service ten people at the same time with around thirteen workers taking care of customers, cooking and ringing up the order. This coupled with the fact that their burritos are amazing makes the eating environment pretty unique.

All right, so I’m done writing a review of the place and will get right down to it. As I’m

standing there in the twenty person long line someone behind me recognizes someone who is having his order rung up. It seems like a your basic “long-time no-see” situation, but it’s not. The man behind me asks how the other guy is doing. I’m expecting the basic small talk crap that you usually get during those one-touch conversations in public places. The now rung up guy explains that he had a divorce, and he’s lost a lot of weight. Guy behind me responds, “I was going to say, you look great.” “Yeah, that’s what a divorce will do to you,” quips the holding his burrito bag in his left hand guy. He then proceeds to expound upon his experience. I look around at the people around me, and they are not shocked or are at least not displaying shock. Personally, I am. How can anyone speak so candidly about something so private? Has the state of divorce become so blasé that no one is surprised that people are talking about it in a public place…loudly?

Obviously, the length of time at which the divorce took place would play a fact, but I

could never see it as just something that happens. A situation as basic as, “We bought a dog,” or “I flew out to L.A. to visit family.” Those are basic conversations; the kinds people have on cell phone at bus stops or while taking a smoke break outside of the hospital in December. Nothing about them is unexpected but normal. You expect that kind of banter everywhere you go. Perhaps it has less to do with the state of divorce and instead has cell phone use at its center. Those candid conversations that we generally have in privacy driving or in our homes have moved in to the public forum. Maybe people are just embracing that kind of frank speaking. Incorporating it into their everyday. If so, these interactions will become normal. We will all talk about whatever we choose where ever we are, ignoring the obvious nakedness we present ourselves to. I will know more about the people around me than I wish to know. What diseases they have, who they have been with and how they feel about their boss. It’ll all just blend, and be ignored by the masses like a homeless person begging for change during rush hour.

Normalcy is being taken to new lengths, and I’m frightened by that.